Marketer a Storyteller

WE humans are living in a practical yet in a world of fiction. Every individual life is a story, a journey of experiences and memories.

A person feels touched when he is able to relate his experiences with other individual’s experiences; that point he feels closer to that “other person”. He then tries to befriend that stranger, give that stranger a space in life and hence form an association, which we call friendship.

What is a Brand? Is it just a product? Does it have any life and identity of its own?

Brand like any other human being is an individual that has identity, persona and motive in life. But hard point is that this individual has no friends, apart from parents, who have created him. Another miserable fact is that this individual cannot speak, he can’t explain his potential, he seeks one chance for an acceptance in society, and he seeks friends that can be loyal throughout his life.

Who explains the potential of the Brand to the world? Who takes the responsibility to get friends for the Brand?

A Marketer acts on behalf of a brand. He acts as a mediator between a customer and a brand. It’s the responsibility of a marketer to build relationship between a brand and a customer. A brand without marketer is an aphonic individual that crave for someone else to act on his behalf and introduce him to the world.

Marketer, who is acting as a mediator, has to choose friends for the brand very carefully because brand, an aphonic individual, is very gentle and seeks long term friendship. Brand with a disloyal friends do not survive for long and hence gets lost in the crowd. Hence marketer has to pay lot of attention while choosing right friends for the Brand.

Brand as an individual is capable of catering to the need of the customer; need that may not be visible; it could be emotional or it could be functional. But how a Brand can convey this to the customer, he is aphonic, cannot speak but can be a friend, who fills the gap in customer’s life?

To make customer notice, enquire and accept the Brand, marketer has to form a story of a Brand. A story is nothing but an insight of a customer. Marketer has to perform a tough task of first selecting some handful of people, who can become a loyal friend of the Brand, from the crowd; then he has to dive into the lives of the chosen individuals to gain insights of what they feel on emotional front. Since a deep rooted friendship has emotional attachment, marketer has to find that emotional need which is unmet or partially met; he has to find that gap which is not fulfilled by other brands. He has to find answer to the question how can I find friend/s for my Brand?

Once marketer has realised that unmet need, he forms a story on behalf of a Brand; story that has a same insight, touch, and emotions as that of the story of a customer. He makes customer realise that since the Brand has the same story, experiences, emotion as of customer’s Brand can be customer’s best friend.

Through a story, what we call Brand Communication, marketer has to make customer realize that the Brand can cater to the unmet need better than other brands because Brand’s life and its persona is the same as that of customer’s life and persona.

Message of a story should be so clear that it should touch the insight of a customer and should give customer an immediate “Ah” moment or a feeling of love at first sight, and affect of that message should be such that customer has to come forward and accept the friendship of the Brand.

Hence marketer has to play a role of a mediator, a professional that stand for his Brand, but most importantly he has to play a role of storyteller, the one who conveys the potential of a Brand to the customers and hence find long term and loyal friend for a Brand, who without a Marketer is like a lonely and aphonic individual.

Product Development

When one think of choosing a type of product to launch in a market, lot of analysis goes into it. Product should cater to the "NEED" that customer is looking for. One has to figure out the problem that customer is facing and then design solution to that problem. Here are the different options entrepreneurs look for to develop a product:

1. New Product for new market:- When analyst or entrepreneur realizes that there is a problem that customer is facing and problem have no product catering to it, then idea to develop this kind of product comes up. Coming up with a new kind of product can give first mover advantage. For example: In late 90s when idea of Smart Phone arose when its creators saw the need of data transmission over phone. Other advantage of creating a new concept or product is that threat of substitutes is less, threat from competitor is negligible, demand of the product will depend on the severity of the problem that product will solve, so one needs to figure out the demand by building prototype and taking feedback from the customers. Significant challenges in developing new product are :
a) Finding investors or funds to start business
b) Building a right team
c) Finding supplier of raw material, which will be used to create the product
d) Regulatory environment of the country selected for the business.

2. New product for existing market: Idea to develop this category of product comes up when there is a new solution to the problem that customers are facing. So there is a need from the customer and there are various solutions available. So one has to figure out the following:
a) How severe is the problem that customer is facing?
b) How well other solutions are catering to that problem?
If other solutions are failing to meet the needs of customer, then there will be a sufficient demand for the new solution and hence there will be a good chance of getting market share by creating value proposition to the customer.
Apart from funding and government regulations challenge is to create the entirely different product from the existing products.

3. Existing product with some product differentiation : If there is a market and there are lot of products of similar kind that are serving the need of the customers; in that market coming up with a product can be a challenge. For example Telecom sector, where companies have identical product and any other firm entering into that market have to offer some distinguish features in order to gain market share. Challenge in this category is of finding the additional value proposition or unmet need or some features that customer would like to pay for.

4.  INTANGIBLE product: Intangible products is a package that can be used to satisfy the needs of the customers. It is not a service associated with the product but a product that cannot be touched but can be experienced. Coaching centers, Salon and Spas can come under this category. This product can have the same kind of challenges and advantages as of the tangible product categories discussed above.

5.  Services associated with the existing or new product: This is a service that is associated with some product. So the customer's need has been satisfied by the product. Opportunity is to provide services to maintain the performance of the product or to provide additional value to what is already been provided by product or to create accessories for the product. For example Customer care services for software or electronic appliances.

6. Information provider : This is the new field of opportunity. There is a segment of customer that needs information. Businesses need real time information to take decision. So to cater to this need entrepreneur can establish a firm that analyse data, retrieve information and sell that information. Competition, substitutes are very less in this area, but to create competency is a challenge. Resources such as software, trained individuals etc are scarce. Further one has to choose carefully the domain, area or industry to work in.

7. Problem solver: If one has developed expertise in any given area such as software, banking, investment banking, trading etc then he can utilize that experience in helping companies to meet their targets and their customer's needs. For example if one is very proficient in software development, then he can form a team that takes care of critical path of software development for XYZ company and help that company to meet its target. Another example could be of freelancing consultant, the one who on the basis of his experience guide companies in solving business problems. The main obstacle in this business is to prove competency and skill to customer, to make a name in the market and deliver.

Apart from above mentioned product and service type there can be further areas of opportunity. One has to be curious to be creative and meet the needs of customer. Entrepreneurs are problem solvers, they curiously find out the untapped opportunities, unsolved problems of people around and then come up with a new product.

Importance of Market Research

Today most expensive and precious item in the market is not a diamond, not even a gold platted car nor an expensive house but the Information.

Information at right time and at right place can do wonders. The very source of information is research. When relevant data is taken out of terabytes of old and new data, it is analysed and when findings are put on manger’s table to take decision for an enterprise, then one can understand the importance of information and utility of research.

Every firm develops a product to cater to some unmet need or to solve some problem faced by people or by companies. Lot of time, effort and cost goes into a product development; hence it becomes imperative that product sell in the market and help company not only break even but also to be profitable. In order to make sure that there is a demand of the product within a particular segment of customer, companies carry out market research.

Market research removes ambiguity around the product and gives direction to the development and sales team. Its importance can be demonstrated by the following outcomes of the research:

a)     Demand of the product: Market research reveals the level of acceptance or rejection of the product in market. It tells whether the need that product is intended to resolve exists or not and whether the customer is willing to pay for the product or not.

b)    Target Customer: After doing market research firm gets lot of insight about customer’s buying and decision making behaviour. By asking apt questions firm can collect primary data that can reveal various factors that affect customer’s buying decision; incorporating those factors in product, firm can create value for the customer and can do better than the competitors. It also helps firm to choose its target segment of customer and device marketing plan keeping face of customer in mind.

c)     Competitors: Market research makes firm aware of the substitutes, of the product, available in the market. It helps firm doing analysis of competitor’s Strength, Weakness, Opportunities available and Threats and hence helps in developing strategy to tackle competition better.

d)    Substitutes: Sometimes firm can’t see their competitors. Biggest threat to Cannon is not a camera from Nikon or Sony, but it’s an iPhone or Nexus Smartphone that contain camera of competitive quality. Hence through market research firm comes to know about hidden competitors. 

e)     Points of Parity and Differentiation: A product must maintain the balance between the points of parity and differentiation in product. It must not only have the features to cater a particular need of the customer but also have the features to create customer delight or value. Market research helps firm to list down possible ingredients of the product and then to include/exclude each one them depending upon budget and research result.

f)      Risk involved in the launch: Market research gives complete picture of the market situation. On the basis of research results analyst can predict whether economic condition of the country, govt regulations, political scenario etc are suitable for the product or not.

g)     Positioning of the product: Research results can help firm to develop the positioning strategy for the product. Positioning helps in creating perspective of product in the mind of the customer; so firm can zero on that one factor or set of factors that will create positive impact about the product in the mind of the customer. For example firm can run regression to find out, on the basis of primary research data, factors on which customer’s purchase decision depends?

h)    Marketing Mix: Firm can carry out a market research to know the kind of packing customer likes, media to which user is closest to, price on which customer is willing to buy the product, desired modifications, medium from where customer is comfortable buying that product etc . Result of this research can help firms to create a stupendous market mix and create value to the customer.

i)       Communication Strategy: If research reveals the medium where majority of users are active then marketing dept of the firm can allocate maximum funds from promotion budget to that communication media. For example if users in the city are not fond of television but use Facebook, Twitter and Emails, then firm will focus more on social media marketing rather than print media or TV advertisements. Insights into customer behaviour may also help firm to form an effective communication message. For ex: If customers of the product are women then tone of the promotional message will be different from the tone of message meant for male customers.

j)       Difference between buying pattern of the regions: It is said that culture of country like India changes every 100 km. Culture of a place can have large impact on decision making and purchasing pattern of the customer residing in that place. If firm has purchasing patterns of different states in India then it can compare those purchasing patterns and results of this research might lead to different marketing mix, positioning, promotion strategy for each place.

k)     Monitoring the strategy after product is launched: Firm can carry out research even after product is launched, to track the performance of the product in market. For example feedback form that we fill on various food outlets, cinema hall etc helps to capture the satisfaction level of the customer. Result of such research can help firm to make necessary changes in product features, marketing mix etc on time. Such results can save lot of money for a company and can motivate it to come up with new feature that can help in sustainability of the product in the market.

 Keeping points, mentioned above, in mind one can conclude that market research is very important for the overall strategy of the product and that companies have all the incentives to carry out market research for the product.